stevezodiac wrote:Derek, why not change your allegiance to Wigan. It's a Lancs club so no difference?
When I started to interest myself in football, Steve, Bolton Wanderers were in the First Division, then the top league in the country, whereas Wigan Athletic were in the Lancashire Combination, along with such notable teams as Lancaster City, Morecambe, Droylsden, Skelmersdale, Nelson, Darwen, etcetera. I do also have a great deal of affection for Blackburn Rovers because they were the team that my father first took me to see on a regular basis. There was a kind of routine. My dad would ring his younger brother on Friday lunchtimes to agree which match they would watch the following day. The criterion for the choice was deciding which game would be the most evenly matched. Then it was train from Lancaster to Preston, then another from Preston to Mill Hill, if we were going to Blackburn, where we got off and walked down into the valley where Ewood Park was situated. We always went into the Riverside Stand. No tickets were ever booked in advance except obviously for cup ties. If we were going to watch a home game at Bolton, we went from Preston to Trinity Street railway station in Bolton, crossed the road to a cafe for lunch, and then took the long walk down Manchester Road to Burnden Park. We rarely went to Preston's games, and never to Burnley's. Virtually all the above journeys occurred when I was still in the local primary school. The only trip to Wigan that I can recall from that same period was to meet the family of the woman that my father's younger brother was going to marry. I watched my first and only Rugby League match that day, Wigan v Swinton.